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Forum: General Talk
08-20-2015, 06:05 AM
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Sadly I don't, it was many years ago, possibly 40+. Maybe google can help.
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Forum: General Talk
08-13-2015, 04:28 AM
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That's true, but I wonder how much acceleration you could build up by then, after all you're not going to loose that momentum in space. The problem of course is slowing down at the other end, or making mid trip course corrections. Coming back is a problem but I assumed that a colonisation trip was always going to be one way.
I read a scifi story once about this, the problem was that long after they left, mankind discovered the warp drive, and aftere a time, the lost sub light ship could not be found. So when they finally reached the next star system people were already living there and had for thousands of years. Very sad.
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Forum: General Talk
08-11-2015, 06:52 PM
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That is interesting, as I am actually a still working (for a few years more anyway) scientist. and my father was a mechanical engineer, I do have an idea of what it takes to turn a ton of iron ore into a finished machine part. But don't forget that people managed to turn out items like beautfully made laminated steel sword blades and other intricate metal items without any of that technology 1000 years ago. I take your point about a lot of the so called predictions for the 21st century having lived through this period myself. And I do find that in many cases a lot of these predictions are if not actually wrong, were at least overly optimistic. I agree with all your examples but one you didn't mention is the one about having to invent new leisure time activities because we would all be working 3 days a week (automation doing the rest) Sadly that scientist obviously didn't study economics, or maybe he did, and just didn't want to say that instead why automate when transnationals would just send the work to some 3rd world country. The good side is I guess is that at least now some of those people can afford flushing toilets, if they have a functional sewer to connect them to. :)
One thing is for certain massive changes will happen, but as long as we have our current economic system the happening will be in a directed manner, many of them will never see the light of day not because they are not technologically feasable, but simply because the will to do them either economically or politically just isn't there.
Fact we have solar power on our house, fact, our yearly bill is now approximately what our quarterly bill used to be, even with the crappy buy back credits we get now. This means that our system will pay for itself in about 3 years and after that continue to effectively put $3000 per year back into our pocket for at least the next 20 years. If I had access to a cheap reliable storage technology I would go off grid completely, many people with deeper pockets than I, especially those who live in areas where traditional supply is outrageously expensive to connect, have already done so. If the Tesla company sells their new 2KwH lithium based systems they recently released based on their car technology over here, I'll be interested. Yet our current govt is now actively discouraging more uptake of solar - they can finally see the writing on the wall for traditional power distribution models. Sorry it's too late, too many of us have seen it too!
Many smal African and Asian, and Pacific island countries have no copper phone system, they never will, they have leapfrogged that old technology and gone straight to mobile / satellite. Similarly in laboratory testing instead of large medical laboratories staffed by highly trained medical scientists (which they don't have) they have gone for a more diffuse testing model with point of care instruments which can be operated by anyone with rudimentary medical training. I could go on but the point I'm trying to make is that it is possible to experience disruptive technologies that instantly render the old way of doing things no longer sensible, unless you are already comitted economically to the old system.
I still say we we shouldn't put arbitary limitations on our aspirations for technology just because that is the way we have always believed something should be done something in the past.
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Forum: General Talk
08-11-2015, 04:34 AM
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Aw that's a little harsh, I don't think that my suggestions are any more "out there" than attempting to lift giant generational ships from the earth's surface or close to speed of light travel. Nor were they meant to be sarcastic. Wasn't the thread title "What would be needed for Interstellar travel" Also what you say is quite true but that is for mineral mining and processing on Earth, in space with low gravity, endless vacuum and sunlight available, different processes could be developed and used. For example I wouldn't use solar electricity to smelt, a large mylar mirror could be used to focus sunlight for smelting purposes, and metal oxidation is not a problem with no oxygen. Also Astronauts wouldn't do the mining, they would only pave the way and provide transportation, mining engineers would supervise the mining same as they do here right now. Anyway we should consider all posibilities as we never know what might be feasable in 50 or 100 years time.
If I had gone to George Eastman back in 1885 and told him that in 110 years you would have a camera that could take and hold hundreds of beautiful colour images inside a little piece of plastic and extract them later for printing any time you wish, and, not only that, but HIS company would actually invent this process and then later go broke because they didn't believe in it! But don't worry because the Japanese would pick it up and make a success of it. Well what do you think he would have said. :)
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Forum: General Talk
08-09-2015, 05:53 AM
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You guys are doing it the hard way. A ship designed to travel in space doesn't have to be streamlined, so to solve the problem of lifting all that material into space, don't lift it. Use conventional ships to get out to the asteroid belt. Build a base on Mars if necessary. Make your long range ships out of hollowed out asteroids. Always take a much bigger asteroid than you need so you can mine more ore and use it to build replacements things on route. To move them, use an atomic heated jet and water as fuel. The water is raised up from the oceans using a bucket travelator. You build a diamond fibre cable from the Earths surface, and tether the far end to an asteroid in geosynchronous orbit and add an endless loop travelling skip system that runs up the cable to space, and down the other side. The asteroid ships could use either the generational or the cold sleep idea. Both could work. One problem of the generational ship idea is the inherent dangers of a small gene pool and random mutation / genetic drift. A better idea for a generational ship is one which carries a large amount of frozen human eggs and sperm which could supplement the local gene pool.
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